Discussion

4 thoughts on “The Mars problem”

We operate schools that work from well- worn scripts to produce the dutiful graduates for the very predictable careers of the nineteenth century.

We need schools to encourage student control of their learning (consistent with appropriate standards / core knowledge requirements) to yield graduates with the knowledge and skills for the fast-paced and entrepreneurial careers of the twenty-first century.

Your post coincides with my mental meanderings this morning. I think we operate schools as a matter of probability and improbability. Here a some binaries, from the nutz to the somewhat more probable…

We operate schools because we mistake our perceptions for reality (the universe may be a giant hairball spat up by The Great Space Cat).

We operate schools due to events that cause brain circuitry errors akin events that cause binary errors in solid-state circuitry (See, sixth full paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on Error-code correcting memory (ECC memory) regarding the binary “flipped” error rate in data bits in random access memory: “…25,000 to 70,000 errors per billion device hours per megabit (about 3–10×10−9 error/bit·h), and [that] more than 8% of DIMM memory modules [are] affected by errors per year.” Accessed on July 9, 2012 at 9:03 a.m. EST, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory ) Consideration might also be given to the writings of António Damásio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_Dam%C3%A1sio ).

We operate schools because we adults are ashamed of ourselves and are afraid, and therefore make feeble attempts to prevent Electra and Oedipus from striking us dead as we sleep (or at least to prevent them from upsetting the lifestyles and comforts to which we have grown accustomed).

We operate schools because our parents operated schools.

I fear that we adults impose upon youths restrictions that are nearly identical to those that have caught us up in a headlong rush that has little to do with living a life we find personally meaningful. As a socio-cultural matter, the roots of the USA involve a rather sordid history of laying waste to local resources and, after consuming those resources like a swarm of locusts, an ever-outward quest to find more resources to consume. I think it quite probable that “teaching” youths to follow our errors is a grave error.

We operate schools that try to measure knowledge. We need schools that embrace the immeasurable. We operate schools that teach students to pick apart and classify without ever learning to connect and create. We operate schools that confuse unity and uniformity, standards and standardization, knowledge and wisdom.